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Actually, I think the US has made it's choice: China first, Japan second.

SInce the restart of the cold war, China is still more important to the US than Japan. Economically also China provides cheap labor to US corporations and there's favorable tax treatment of US corporations keeping money outside.

That the "alliance" of Australia and India with Japan to counter China constitutes "lip service" from the US (a false front action) is evident by looking at the actors: Australia is China's biggest trading partner and Coal supplier and India, in all things, leaves a LOT to be desired except in providing massive amounts of laborers. The US probably won't mind if Australia makes a few more $$s selling Japan some minor arms under this "alliance".

And Japan, having been under US protective umbrella so long will have a very hard time to "come out" of it. Sorry Japan.

For the first time (thanks to this article) US policy on China has been made clear: to ride out the "marriage" between the worlds biggest communist country and worlds biggest democracy (and vocally proud of it) as long as circumstances allow and corporate profits dictate. In other words there is no policy.

I think the Game of Co-opetition played by the US with China (cooperation and competition) is running out of wiggle room. Another sign of waning global influence.

Picking sides is inevitable, unless US thinks it can gracefully "manage to bat down" it's Allies like Japan, Australia, India.

Frame the argument with Economics: China has opened up belligerence in international policy as a classic counter to a slowing domestic economy (not that you'd hear that in the international press or "official" chinese GDP figures). It makes sense politically: Chinese leadership gets to deflect attention and consolidate it's public support. It makes sense economically: keynesian spending on military during a down cycle.

For Japan, on the receiving end, there is no economic ability to balance it's economic down cycles with keynesian spending on the military: the post WWII consitutional arrangement with the US forbids it. And yet it must respond.

The US better get some policy clear here. Either way it will lose something. Good luck reigning in China. So far the US has shown no inclination whatsoever to tell China anything, even providing oil from the newly conquered Iraq to China.

Mr. Evans, when you wrote "Abe's Asian Gambit", days after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit to Australia earlier this month, did you know that Abe would be visiting Latin America too? His visit comes shortly after China's Xi Jinping ended his trip there. Abe is visiting Latin America with the intention to wrestle with China for influence in the region and get support for a permanent seat in the UN Security Council.
During a brief term as prime minister in 2006-7, Abe visited India and stressed the need for a strategic and global partnership with India to strengthen ties between the two countries. India and Japan were fostering a strategic relationship aimed at countering China. Already seven years ago Abe favoured an alliance - a “Quadrilateral Security Dialogue” - between Japan, Australia, the United States and India. A "joint military exercises" was conducted in 2007 and "was seen by China as a hostile containment enterprise". No doubt this plan is "still very much on Abe’s wish list".
Abe was in Australia over two weeks ago, seen by many as drawing Australia to his side and trying to contain China. Abbott chose to compromise for myopic policies and pandered to an revisionist Japan, "by signing an agreement for the transfer of defense equipment and technology". Without remorse Abe delivered a speech in the Australian parliament and hypocritically vowed never to repeat history.
Australia plays a crucial role in "Abe's Asian Gambit". In Abbott, Abe has found a soul mate and a source of friendship that is palpably absent from his testy relationships with the leaders of China and South Korea. Due to his unapologetic brand of nationalism he is hardly on speaking terms with China's Xi Jinping and South Korea's Pakr Geun-hye.
Abe’s mission to forge a military alliance has been welcomed by Australia and other countries in the region, which are alarmed by China’s swift, and opaque, military build-up. Abbot's vociferous support came as no surprise. The Japan-Australia relationship has transformed in the seven decades since the end of the second world war.
China may be Australia’s biggest trading partner, but there was a time when Tokyo and Canberra’s economic and diplomatic interests converged so seamlessly. Today Australia is Japan's second-biggest trading partner and Abe has long wanted to complete an unfinished business - the conclusion of a free-trade deal with Australia. His maternal grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, was Japan’s prime minister when he signed a commercial pact with his Australian counterpart Robert Menzies in 1957. No doubt Abe and Abbot had reason to celebrate this "special friendship", which Abe saw as his political rehabilitation. Abbot was ingenious by pouring out his "admiration for 'the skill and sense of honor' of the Japanese submariners who died attacking Sydney Harbor in 1942".

Abe is not aiming at greater military self-reliance; he is simply shoring up Japan's efforts for better coordination with the United States' pivot to East Asia. It is far beyond Japan's power to alter or undermine the power balance in this region, and no Japanese politician could muster domestic support for that if he/she dared; strong opposition would soon arise and mount up from across the country, even from the ruling party. As a matter of fact, Abe's reinterpretation of the article nine made his approval rating fall.

The Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP or the ruling party) has not reinterpreted the interpretation of the Supreme Court. It has reinterpreted its own interpretation. I would like anyone, if interested, to read Michi's six comments to Tom Clifford/The Samurai Stirs/On Line Opinion (http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=16464).

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